Summer will be busy in Birch Bay

By Christine Callan

Summertime is gearing up in the Birch Bay area and members of the Birch Bay Chamber of Commerce are expanding the menu of warm weather events this year.

Kicking things off is a sandcastle contest this Saturday, June 22. As soon as the tide is out, the competition will begin from the mouth of the Terrell Creek to the grocery store. Judging begins at 12:30 p.m. and everyone who participates will receive a great prize.

The annual Birch Bay Nugget Hunt starts the following day, Sunday and will go through the following Sunday. Participants will find gold nuggets sprinkled on the beach from Terrell Creek to Cottonwood Drive and will take them to the headquarters, located in the Driftwood Inn Motel. A pirate will be lurking throughout the week handing out clues. The Driftwood will be open from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Participants can check the numbers on their nuggets, and match them to businesses where they can go to collect their bounty. The grand prize is a $50 U.S. savings bond. Other prizes will include train rides, sodas, golf games, basketballs, and food.

Discovery Days will be a weekend packed with activity in July .

The parade kicks things off on July 20th. “It’s a local community parade where people toot their horns and have fun,” said chamber president Nick Jerns. “It’s an opportunity for neighbors to have fun.” The parade will begin around 11 a.m. and travel from the waterslides to the end of Alderson Road. Adding color to this year’s parade will be 30-50 members of the Civil Air Patrol, who will also have a booth at the arts and craft fair to promote their civilian based training, search and rescue and homeland security program.

The arts and crafts fair will be on July 20 from 10 a.m. -7p.m. and 10 a.m. -5 p.m. July 21 at the Birch Bay golf course. “I’m looking forward to the new location and increased participation this year,” Jerns said. There are already 65 entries for this year’s event, 15 more than last year. New features include several children’s games/booths, a duck pond ring toss, balls at bottles toss and the Boys and Girls Club will be hosting a dunk tank. Food and beverage vendors will also be there.

New to this year’s Discovery Days is a health fair, which will go from noon to5 p.m. on July 20 next to Edgewater Resort. A few of the many sponsors for this event include the Birch Bay Lions Club, which will be present to provide health screening, the Puget Sound Blood Bank collecting blood donations, and the Blaine police department with child seat safety checks. A cat and dog vaccination clinic is also planned.

Also new to this year’s festivities is a Whatcom Transportation Authority trolley, which will be making its way up and down Birch Bay Drive stopping at various points along the way. The trolley will run from the state park boundary to Bay Center Market (10 a.m. -7p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m.- 6p.m. on Sunday) Three times a day, the trolley will make its way up to Blaine to meet up with the National Artrain exhibit stopping there. Regular fares will be charged to ride the trolley.

A flock of rubber ducks will again race down Terrell Creek July 27, and one could have your number on it. At 1 p.m. the Duck Derby starts at the Alderson Road bridge and the first duck to the finish line wins the grand prize – seven nights at any Worldmark resort worldwide. “Prize packages are much better, with more high dollar items,” Jerns said. Prizes include a dinner series, vacation packages, a spa package, a year’s worth of coffee and other local wares. There will be ten prizes for race winners and twenty door prizes. Duck tickets are $5, available at most Birch Bay and many Blaine businesses, including Sterling Savings Bank, Bank Northwest, Birch Bay Business Park, Dakota Creek Roadhouse,
C-Shop, and Trendwest Resorts.

To wrap up Discovery Days, a Birch Bay Golf Tournament is to begin on the morning of July 28 at the Birch Bay Golf Club.

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